The 1.9 million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, along with Capitol Reef National Park, Bryce National Parks, a variety of BLM lands and State Parks, protect large swaths of south central Utah. Numerous hiking trails penetrate this amazing landscape allowing hikers to wander through the stone forests formed by the pink and white hoodoos at Bryce National Park, to spend days roaming the vast and rugged plateaus and multi-hued cliffs of the Grand Staircase and Canyons of the Escalante and to explore the hidden treasures of the Waterpocket Fold and Cathedral Valley in Capitol Reef National Park.